Dorchester resident Julia de los Santos is yet another small business owner who has seen her business model transformed by COVID-19.

After moving to Boston from the Dominican Republic at a young age, the fashion designer and tailor worked for years at retailers like Nordstrom, Saks, and David’s Bridal before starting her own business, JDLS Couture, out of her Washington Street home studio in 2017.

Normally, de los Santos gets a lot of orders for dress alterations and custom costume designs, meaning that the upcoming summer months — prom and wedding season— tend to be the busiest. Now, with many of those events canceled and all in-person tailoring work deemed untenable, de los Santos has channeled her sewing abilities toward a new initiative: making custom, high-end protective face masks.

The switch to mask-making was about “trying to survive,” said de los Santos.

A sample custom "mask combo" from de los Santos' shop.

“It’s another ability to learn at the last minute. Because COVID changed everything, I had to transform everything...we have to be open-minded to accept and implement the change in our lives, our business, our everything.”

The 100 percent cotton masks and bonnets are made from patterned fabric and include a protective filter sewn into the inside of the mask. De los Santos said she designed the masks to be “breathable, protective, good quality, and very comfortable.” But, crucially, the masks are also functional in a time of crisis.

A couple weeks ago, de los Santos donated hundreds of masks to local hospitals through an initiative led by Compass Working Capital, a nonprofit with a goal of helping low-income families improve their economic security.

That action caught the attention of City Councillor Andrea Campbell, who knew de los Santos from when Compass helped start up her business. She rallied a team of donors to enlist de los Santos to make 1,000 masks to be distributed to folks in Campbell’s District 4.

A range of mask patterns fashioned by JDLS Couture.

On Monday, Campbell picked up the first shipment of masks, which will go to public housing authorities in the district. The rest will go to civic leaders and seniors, who will then distribute them to those in need in the community.

Campbell called delivering the masks “the highlight of my last couple weeks.”

“Obviously, we see COVID having a disproportionate effect on not only the health of people but also on businesses in my district, threatening their survival. In order to ensure that these businesses thrive and stay afloat after this is over, we need to rally around them. Sometimes government can take too long--this was one way to think outside the box.”

Campbell added that the win-win nature of the partnership offered a welcome respite from the sad reality of learning about new cases and deaths each day.

“To have an opportunity to support a business, and to ensure that Julia can continue to be successful and meet the needs of our community, it’s a feel-good story, and definitely one we need right now.”

de los Santos in front of her Washington Street storefront. Anastasia Wolf photo

The first round of 500 masks took de los Santos and three others a week to make, she said, working for twelve hours each day. Elsewhere, the masks are beginning to gain traction on Instagram, where de los Santos said her niece is active in spreading the word. Orders are now flooding in from New York, New Jersey, and as far as Florida--meaning that de los Santos is looking to hire more workers. Thanks to her niece, some of those orders are coming in via Cashapp, another novel concept for de los Santos, who described herself as “not a technology woman.”

“I never used Cashapp, but I have to learn. My niece showed me how to do it,” she explained. “Now everything is possible by phone, by computer, so you don’t have to do [in-person] contact...it’s different, but I’m staying open-minded.”

To learn more about Julia’s face masks, visit jdlscouture.com.